Young will skip start over shoulder ‘tightness’

Impressive and encouraging as Chris Young’s first outing since his Aug. 17 surgery was in a win at Arizona on Tuesday, the aftereffect was discouraging enough that he will not make his scheduled start in the Padres’ home debut Monday.

Shoulder “tightness” was cited as the reason Young’s turn instead will go to Kevin Correia, who started Wednesday. The possibility exists, however, that Young will start either the second or third game of the home series against the Atlanta Braves. The Padres were coming off a day off Thursday and have another Tuesday, giving Young more time for recovery and reassessment.

“We’re going to give him the two extra days to bounce back,” manager Bud Black said. “The flexibility of our schedule allows us to do this and not try to push it.”

In the event Young would skip a complete turn, the schedule is such that none of the other starters would miss their normal rest between outings. Moreover, close at hand is Tim Stauffer, who’s actually in the early stages of a transition from career starter to the Padres bullpen.

“With the off-time, we’ve had the opportunity to give it a little extra rest, which I think at this point in the season is the smart approach,” said Young of his right shoulder. “It would do me no good to go out there and pitch and have it get worse or tighter.”

At the same time, Young emphasized, “It’s not something I’m worried about. Really, I expected to go through this in spring training, and I didn’t. For whatever reason — the volume, the intensity, the adrenaline of the first real game — I’m going through it now. Part of me wants to keep going and keep building on it, but I gotta be smart about it.

“I’m not going to risk the season. Last year I pitched through pain. There’s not even pain involved in this.”

Latos to get taste of Coors

Ideally, theoretically, you treat it like any other ballpark. The altitude is 5,280 feet, yes, but the distance between the mound and plate is still 60 feet, six inches. And all that.

Good luck convincing any young major leaguer, whether pitcher or hitter, that Coors Field is just another day in the park.

Mat Latos goes through another big league rite of passage when he makes his first appearance at Coors Field, drawing the start tonight against the Colorado Rockies, whose lineup introduced Latos to the majors leagues in his debut last July 19. But you haven’t really experienced a game against the Rockies until you’ve done it at Coors Field.

“I talked to (Padres closer) Heath Bell a little bit about it in Arizona,” Latos said. “He said the breaking ball might not break as much, the slider might not break as much, but if you keep it down in the zone, you’ll get guys to chasing.”

With its thin air, Coors Field is not exactly the perfect place to continue development of the curveball and slider, as the 22-year-old Latos is doing, working those pitches into his fastball-changeup repertoire.

“The curveball is not part of what we feel is his best stuff,” Black said. “I’m not gonna say he won’t use it. He might. He might use it in certain counts against hitters who are weak against the curveball. And we’ll see how his curveball looks tomorrow. It’s shown very well at times this spring.”

If anything, Latos is looking forward to taking his hacks in batting practice today. He said he got his first eye-popping view of the Coors Field Effect when a high school buddy, David Christiansen, was drafted high by the Rockies and took his first batting practice at Coors Field as part of his introduction to the franchise.

“His dad got it on video and showed it to me,” Latos said. “The ball jumped off the bat. He was just crushing the balls, unloading, left and right. I thought, ‘Man, that’d be a good place to hit and not such a good place for a pitcher.’ But that’s the challenge.”

Padres pitching coach Darren Balsley said he makes it a policy not to prepare his charges specifically for any ballpark, whether it’s Fenway or Wrigley or Petco, lest a pitcher get his head filled with anything beyond throwing strikes and getting outs. Indeed, the general mantra for pitching at Coors Field is much the same as anywhere else.

“Keep it down,” Latos said. “As long as I know I can make my pitches, I’ll be fine. I’m not gonna sit there and worry myself over that kind of (altitude) stuff. I’m just worrying about making ground balls and not leaving the ball up.”

E-bullpen

At just about the same time Clayton Richard noticed Sean Gallagher yesterday, Gallagher noticed Richard, and he noted right away that the former was still on duty on the mound. Gallagher, under the mistaken impression that he’d been summoned into the game during the seventh-inning stretch, was almost to the infield dirt when he turned to the bullpen and threw up his hands in confusion.

“I’m running out there, listening to ‘God Bless America,’ and saw Clayton,” Gallagher said. “I’ve seen that happen before, but never in a big league game. I’ve seen it in winter league and Fall League where they’re switching pitchers constantly. It was just one of those things, a mixed-up communication.”